Valley Fire (CA) Unchecked, Now Burns 70,000 ACRES - State Of Emergency - 30% Contained - 9,000 structures threatened - 585 Homes Known Destroyed

Just look at these firefighters near Middleton, CA yesterday . . .

:FFMiddleton:


They are incredible - wishing these heroes protection and getting home safely.


p.s. Hey Madigan! Thinking of your friend as one of these heroes.

Aaawwww......he's a great guy. Real down to earth.

He's been fighting fires in Northern California for over 20 years.

Hope they all stay safe.

UPDATE 12:35 p.m.

The Valley fire has damaged five of the 14 geothermal electricity producing plants at The Geysers, the largest geothermal plant in the world, but the immediate impact on power generation is not yet known.

Read more here: [link to www.sacbee.com]

The Sac Bee is also saying people are unaccounted for in the
Valley fire.

How many acres of California are left?

more vegetation means more and bigger fires.

14 photos...

[link to mashable.com]

Such complete devastation.

The way I see it, you are either insured or uninsured. You have some degree of personal choice with regard to where you reside.

No way any man or woman I care about will be battling that annual occurrence.

heres my scanner
il keep it up streaming for a while

[link to www.ustream.tv]

I commented early on in this thread, funny how it disappeared. I said how the pics look like bombing. So many pics are of a car or house melted to nothing, but the trees surrounding are untouched. I believe we are seeing the beginning of agenda 21. Securing the water, evacuating the people.

OP how far do you think it will get, could it be possible that the whole state of Ca is burned.

not much left to burn here in lake county

Heartbreaking.

First let me say thanks to all posting updates here as I work.

Second - we haven't had a fire like this in a while.. I am not experienced enough to comment on the potential completely. But if they can't get this butte fire contained quick then these two will continue to burn until they run up against their fuel limits - bodies of water or extreme topography. We will have to wait and see, I certainly hope they can get handles on thilese fires.


Update from Sac on smoke - smoke up high but no smoke on the ground today as we have a nice breeze. Not good for fire conditions but for breathing conditions it helps.

it looks like overcast fog outside here, but its smoke.
and the air quality is terrible.. yuk

Thanks for the scanner link and for keeping this pinned. It's sad what kind of stupid threads get pinned on here sometimes.

Been following both the fires on some of the Twitter/FB rescue pages. While it's so sad to see the destruction, there are so many good people showing up from all over Cali to help these folks, with tons of donations, trucks, trailers and opening up their churches, homes/RVs and farms to help the humans and animals.

My friends have been evacuated from the Butte fire since Wednesday but heard yesterday their home is still standing.
They're spending their time helping with over 400 rescued animals at the fair grounds.

Gives me faith in humanity. Prayers being sent to all those affected...and for some rain. We're expecting drizzle in the Bay Area later but don't think it will help much.

A whole series of small quakes in the fire area. Isn't this the location of an ancient volcano? I seem to remember something about this.
[link to ds.iris.edu]

cheers, first time streaming my scanner
[link to www.ustream.tv]

Yuk.

Reno is getting hit hard today too.

All sports activities to go indoors....or cancel.

Interesting. Where are the dindoos? is this a racist fire that only attacks whites?

The Geysers: [link to www.geysers.com]

recent earthquakes in the fire area: [link to ds.iris.edu]

A whole series of small quakes in the fire area. Isn't this the location of an ancient volcano? I seem to remember something about this.
[link to ds.iris.edu]


Fires can be caused by methane or volcano activity. The ground is just getting too hot and spontaneous combustion starts. Or a gas pocket of methane. You can fry an egg on the sidewalk when the heat sets in.

This article in 2013

Thread: Extinct Mount Konocti volcano swallows California subdivision

Lakeport, California

Eight homes are now abandoned and 10 more are under notice of imminent evacuation as a hilltop with sweeping vistas of Clear Lake and the Mount Konocti volcano swallows the subdivision built 30 years ago.

The situation has gotten so bad that mail delivery was ended to keep carriers out of danger.

Officials believe water that has bubbled to the surface is playing a role in the destruction. But nobody can explain why suddenly there is plentiful water atop the hill in a county with groundwater shortages.

"That's the big question," said Scott De Leon, county public works director. "We have a dormant volcano, and I'm certain a lot of things that happen here (in Lake County) are a result of that, but we don't know about this."

[link to www.dailyherald.com] FWIW

A whole series of small quakes in the fire area. Isn't this the location of an ancient volcano? I seem to remember something about this.
[link to ds.iris.edu]


Fires can be caused by methane or volcano activity. The ground is just getting too hot and spontaneous combustion starts. Or a gas pocket of methane. You can fry an egg on the sidewalk when the heat sets in.

This article in 2013

Thread: Extinct Mount Konocti volcano swallows California subdivision

Lakeport, California

Eight homes are now abandoned and 10 more are under notice of imminent evacuation as a hilltop with sweeping vistas of Clear Lake and the Mount Konocti volcano swallows the subdivision built 30 years ago.

The situation has gotten so bad that mail delivery was ended to keep carriers out of danger.

Officials believe water that has bubbled to the surface is playing a role in the destruction. But nobody can explain why suddenly there is plentiful water atop the hill in a county with groundwater shortages.

"That's the big question," said Scott De Leon, county public works director. "We have a dormant volcano, and I'm certain a lot of things that happen here (in Lake County) are a result of that, but we don't know about this."

[link to www.dailyherald.com] FWIW

[link to volcanoes.usgs.gov]

Yes they are incredible.
I believe some of those may be Inmates.
CalFire uses a lot of Inmate Crews.

Pretty cool.

==========

Yesterdays fire behavior was predictable.
Believe it or not.

Because it was a cold front that hit.

Just because the temperature goes down doesn't mean the fire slows down.

Cold Fronts, in the summer and fall, are better labeled dry fronts.

The air is dryer.
Especially along the leading edge of the front.
The wind picks up. In this case a lot.

When you have really dry fuels. Both live and dead vegetation.
A lot of wind.
Dryer air. With a dry summer cold front the air cannot hold as much moisture as it did the day before. Seriously.

You don't need high temps to get very dangerous fire behavior.

============

The fire is laying down today.
Some more moisture with this part of the front. Leading edge has passed.
Winds are way down.

BUT THAT VALLEY FIRE AIN'T HANDLED.

FOXNews is covering it

Yes

The "cloud cover" is all smoke. It is disgusting, time to time if you look you can catch the sun seeping through, it looks gross.

In order to try and look at where this fire will go, and how long it could run if unchecked you would have to have information on everything, samples like forest density, fuel type, fuel loading and even the availability of the fuels. All three of these are subjects of their own.


You've also got all sorts of topographical factors that will slow down or speed up the burning process. The speed can also affect the devastation left behind on any one area, if it burns hot due to sparse/dehydrated fuels you can see the devastation like we have before us, burning whole cars with a quick sweep over the road, houses, etc. You have things like slope, canyons (box, narrow, wide),aspect of the slopes, ridges, saddles, etc. Man made barriers also, such as lakes and levis/dams.


I haven't looked at Google Earth enough to know what the fuels are there, it seems a lot of shrubs and I gather there must be a lot of timber understory which acts as a bridge for the fire to begin a crown fire a top the trees, which is why we see such amazing features from such a fire. Weather patterns, smoke extremely high and thus easy to blow.



There are types of fuel that meet 4 diffferent classifications as far as burn rates...

1 hour fuels, 10 hour fuels, 100 hour fuels, 1,000 hour fuels. This typcally depends on diameter of the fuel.. Surface area, etc.

So to answer the question of could this burn the whole state? I mean, anything is possible. I don't know... I will look at the land best I can through Google Earth - and check it out.

From what I have looked at so far there doesn't seem to be much change in elevation, however the features that can still be there can be extremely perilous to firefighters and hotshots.


EDIT::: Thank you to whoever pinned this, thank you!!

Last Edited by TwoInThePink on 09/14/2015 06:44 PM

UPDATE::::

SACRAMENTO: IT IS RAINING HERE, pretty good too!
Unsure if this is due to the fire or natural, as there was a 10% chance of precip today on my weather app.

im trying my best to make it rain with no lightning

keep me updated on the rain please thanks